Back to Burnt: One Last Maine Adventure

On Friday, September 7, we set out from South Bristol Harbor for a last Maine cruise in Cilantro. (She is scheduled to be pulled out of the water on Monday the 10th.) We motored across outer Muscongus Bay to Burnt Island in three- and four-foot mixed swells from the south and southwest. We thought about putting up sail, but the winds were light, and we would have been on a broad reach, with wind abaft the beam (coming from farther back than the midpoint of the boat). With the motion of the boat climbing up and over the swells, we were worried about jibing and excessive boom bounce, so we charged up batteries instead. The swells were a parting gift from Tropical Storm Leslie that was bypassing Bermuda and heading northeast toward Newfoundland. (Sue's personal belief was that some of the swells approached six feet from trough to crest, but she went with the three- and four-foot estimates to seem more grown-up.)

Greater shearwater in Muscongus Bay

Being under power instead of sail meant that, whenever we saw interesting birds, we could slow up and watch or turn and chase them. We spotted a large group of gannets circling and diving, and Curtis saw a boil of fish beneath them (perhaps escaping from harbor porpoises or a whale), so we motored in that direction. The fish had dispersed by the time we got there, but we had great looks at gannets, plus a greater shearwater that Sue managed a so-so photograph of, panning with her point-and-shoot as it flew past the boat.

Our goal on this mini-trip had been to visit Monhegan Island if we could. Monhegan lies 10 miles out to sea -- the name means "out-to-sea island" in Mi'kmaq -- and is known for excellent hiking and birding, especially during migration. The island community is considered a quintessential part of coastal and island Maine culture. The problem is that Monhegan has no safe anchorages, and there are only a handful of guest or rental moorings available on any given day. If you arrive late or during a busy time, you may not find a place to stay and will have to return to the mainland or head to the nearest alternative (usually Burnt or Allen Islands, several miles away). Even if you do pick up a mooring in Monhegan Harbor, it offers very little protection from prevailing winds and waves. Curtis read aloud from the cruising guide: "The harbor is exposed to the southwest and, to a lesser degree, to the northeast. Even in calm weather, the ocean swells funnel into the harbor and make it rolly. During a blow from the south, the swells are awesome, and it would be an extremely difficult and dangerous place to be." The forecast for Saturday predicted strong south and southwest winds and six- to nine-foot swells, so we were uncertain at best about making the 10-mile trip offshore.

Monhegan Island on NOAA chart #13301; Monhegan Harbor is exposed

to southwest swells; the rest of the west shore is deep, with strong tidal

currents and numerous underwater cables.

Allen and Burnt Islands in Muscongus Bay (NOAA chart #13301); we

anchored in the curved bay along the north shore of Burnt.

Anchoring on the north side of Burnt Island, in a little curving bay that we had visited before, we were mostly protected from the ocean swells, but a few of them wrapped around the point of land to our east to roll the bay a bit. We followed our usual anchoring routine, with Curtis dropping the hook in about 18 feet of water and paying out the chain and nylon rode steadily as the wind blew our bow off and we drifted downwind. We waited until the boat's drift pulled the nylon taut, then Sue shifted into reverse to put mild and then moderate tension on it. As she ran the engine rpms up to about 1700, she could feel the boat making small jerks backward, and she could see the shoreline sliding by in the opposite direction. Up at the bow, Curtis felt the rode alternately tension and jerk loose under his hand, indicating that the anchor was skipping along the bottom. He signaled to Sue to shift into neutral, and he let out another 25 feet of rode. He felt the anchor take hold, paid out even more line, and then Sue powered against it again in reverse. This time there was no jerking and hopping (and the shoreline stayed in the same place!). We took a few bearings and kept an eye on our swing and drift for a while, but the anchor held nicely.

Sunset with great blue heron on Burnt Island

We took an evening row along the shore, watching double-crested cormorants perch goofily on a floating dock. We considered going ashore, but the rollers were sloshing and breaking rather messily on the cobbled and rocky beach, so Sue was apprehensive about trying to land. Curtis kept rowing, and Sue snapped a sunset photo with a great blue heron.

Three more boats eventually joined us in the bay, including a 40-foot or larger craft from Florida skippered by a single-handing sailor who competently dropped sail and anchored, then disappeared below for the night. One of the other boats was an older, wooden, cutter-rigged boat carrying a family of four plus a small dog. They arrived at dusk, anchored next to us but at a respectable distance, and hung what looked like an oil lantern from the inner headstay for their anchor light.

Neighboring boat departs in a foggy dawn.

Fog greeted us the next morning. Visibility was less than a tenth of a mile, so we could only dimly see the shoreline of Burnt and the neighboring boat. As the fog began to dissipate ("diminish," Sue would say, not "clear"), the Florida single-hander weighed anchor and motored out of the anchorage, climbing back and forth between the helm and the mast and foredeck, putting up his mainsail and readying his headsail for hoisting. He disappeared into the fog around the point. From the wooden sailboat next to us, two kids plus mom and the dog rowed to a distant beach in their hard dinghy.

Curtis marveled that Burnt Island was far enough offshore to make gannets a "yard" bird. At least twenty of these elegant pelagics flew past Cilantro while we sipped our coffee in the cockpit. An adult bald eagle flapped slowly through the fog from a spruce tree on Burnt to his "office" on a small rock-pile island to the north. We had seen probably the same eagle on the same rock pile during our last visit to Burnt.

Whale carcass on Burnt Island

We dinghied to the nearby rocky shore for a mid-morning walk on Burnt Island. Sue was still nervous about disembarking from the dinghy onto the wet and seaweed-covered rocks while waves sloshed into us from behind, but she survived the operation (with Curtis's gracious assistance). Burnt Island is privately owned, but boaters are allowed to visit in the off-season (not July or August), and there are several miles of well-maintained trails. Scanning the shoreline through binoculars from the boat, Sue had spotted what looked like a 20-foot-long whale carcass on the rocky beach, so we walked down the beach to get a closer look. The smell was terrific -- probably this summer's casualty, as the tail flukes were still visible along with other fleshy parts and skin -- but the gulls didn't seem to mind.

On the rest of our walk, land birds were few and far between: a northern flicker, a mockingbird, white-throated sparrows, robins, catbirds, and crows calling in the distance, but no warbler flocks. Sprays of goldenrod, yellowing rosa rugosa, and even orange lichen on a roof lent the island a distinctly fall feeling. Sue stopped frequently to "collect" photos of wildflowers and seaweed.

A fall feeling in the landscape on Burnt Island

Sonchus asper, or prickly sow thistle

Rosa rugosa

Fucus (brown seaweed) species

Assorted seaweed; Sue thinks the red and green fringed
ones might be Chondrus crispus, or Irish moss, along
with pieces of kelp and several Fucus species 

Returning to the boat, we prepared to depart into the slowly clearing fog. We weighed anchor without any trouble -- no kelp this time, but neither was there any mud, so we were probably anchored in rock -- and motored east and south around Burnt Island. We had to pass a mile or so farther south to clear Old Man Ledge and Old Woman Ledge, but by then we would be on a nice trajectory to sail back toward Pemaquid Point. We had ruled out visiting Monhegan Island, given the wind and swell forecast, but Curtis was hoping to get some good sailing in on our last day on the ocean. The swells were already higher than Sue liked, but Cilantro's motion through them was (Sue admitted) relatively controlled. We raised the main to see if it would steady us even more, and it seemed to, so we motorsailed for a while before unfurling the staysail and shutting down the engine. The wind speed was 12 knots when we started out, and it built to 16 or 17 as the day went along, so we left the genoa furled.

Curtis enjoying a great sail; Sue takes many photos to
distract herself. 

Curtis loved the sailing, the tightness of the rigging, the smooth motion of the boat, and her 8.2 knots of speed! He was in his element at the helm or sitting on the edge of the cockpit, watching the wind, fiddling with our heading, and trying to spot whales and seabirds. Sue spent most of the day just getting comfortable with the ocean. It was definitely "lumpy," as our friend Kurt Fisher describes it. She took lots of boring photographs of waves, trying to "commune" with the troughs and crests, and was occasionally able to laugh at herself. Climbing down the companionway to grab a snack or put something away requiring finding and using all available handholds and shifting your weight and balance to match the swing and sway of the boat. Curtis called it "gimbaling," like the movement of Cilantro's gimbaled stove on its axis. "You're getting the same exercise as if you were on a walk," he said to Sue. "So we are gimbaling through the sea instead of gamboling through the forest?" she asked, thinking the forest was a mite more appealing at the moment.

"A lovely day on the ocean," says Curtis. Where he found
beauty, however, Sue saw an endless series of swells.

"What about this giant one powering toward the boat?"
Sue asks.

"Look! Those guys are having lots of fun too!"
Curtis pointed out, as a couple of passing
sailors waved to us.

After passing Pemaquid Point, we sailed north through Johns Bay on broad reaches and a run, returning to the mooring in South Bristol Harbor by late afternoon on Saturday. Cilantro's decks (and the backsides of our shorts!) were coated with salt spray, but we hoped a forecast frontal passage and rainstorm might rinse her off overnight. The rainfall turned out to be minimal, but Mikey told us the next morning that a local fisherman had clocked a wind gust at 42 knots. Probably best that we saved Monhegan for another visit, we agreed.

So our last coastal cruising adventure in Maine has come and gone, along with the lumpiest ocean we have so far encountered. Sue was glad to be getting a gradual introduction to big seas, and Curtis was thrilled with the sailing. Cilantro the Pacific Seacraft turns out to be a very solid ship, and we look forward to moving her south and west toward her next adventure. She will be decommissioned (mast and rigging removed) by Bittersweet Landing Boatyard over the next couple of weeks, after which she will be trucked cross-country to Tucson, transferred to another truck, and driven south into Mexico.

Sunday morning in So. Bristol Harbor

"Hard to Larboard": Communication Onboard

Before there was “port and starboard” to refer to the left and right sides, respectively, of a ship, there was “larboard and starboard.” The etymology of these terms may be more surmised than certain, but starboard is said to derive from steorbord, or “steering side,” because many vessels had a steering oar hung on the right-side of the stern, most rowers – most people – being right-handed. Larboard, by analogy, is thought to come from laddebord, or “loading side,” since a ship with a steering oar hung on the right side would bring its left side to the dock for loading. When shouted the length of a ship or over the roar of wind and waves, however, the two similar-sounding words led to much miscommunication. In the nineteenth century, larboard gradually (or likely by British Admiralty Order) gave way to the term port, a term that may refer to the loading (access) port on the left side of the vessel or the fact that it docks with its left side toward the port.

A boat this size would need more than good hand signals to
communicate between helm and bow.

Clear communication between crew members is essential for many aspects of cruising and living aboard. Over engine noise or wind noise, or if one person has less-than-perfect hearing, it is annoying and often difficult to shout information loudly enough to be effective. Lip-reading can be useful, but established hand signals are probably better for critical business such as anchoring, when one person is at the helm, the other is at the bow, and the engine is running. We use a version of the hand signals described by Nigel Calder in his Cruising Handbook: point left or right to indicate “turn to port” or “turn to starboard”; point ahead for forward gear and aft for reverse; point upward to increase speed (we jab repeatedly for a quick increase) and point downward to decrease speed; hold palm up for neutral; swipe hand across throat for “shut down engine.” On a 100-foot boat, like the one we saw leaving Burnt Island before we arrived, the crew would probably use technology such as walkie-talkies, wireless headsets, or a hardwired intercom to communicate from one end of the vessel to the other.

Even with a standard anchoring routine and an agreed-upon set of hand signals, there are many opportunities for mishearing and misunderstanding. Sue has a particular beef with the word OK, a favorite of Curtis's during almost any multistep procedure. “What do you mean by OK?” she asks, trying to parse its sense in the moment. Curtis fully admits his "OK" has multiple meanings:

1. Keep doing what you're doing (such as motoring in forward or turning to port)
2. Stop what you're doing (such as motoring in forward or turning to port) and go to the next step in the sequence
3. Stop – that's enough (motoring in forward or turning to port...)
4. Hmm, I'm not sure, let me think for a second...
5. I'm lovin' it!

Sue would like to ban OK from the list of acceptable helm-to-bow communications, but Curtis is quite attached to his verbal habit. (Aren't we all.)

“Gannet, Dammit!”

Sue after a long day, probably trying to
interpret Curtis's hand signals at the bow.

On one of our early sails, we were both a bit irritable for some unmemorable reason – probably simple fatigue. “I'd like to come about,” announced Captain Sue, as we sailed on a close reach just west of Pemaquid Point and its shoals. First Mate Curtis was fixing something at the stern or checking the snaps on the dodger or some such task, and he wasn't ready. “Huh,” he grunted. “C'mon, we're getting close to the buoy,” Sue repeated. “Mmmpf, can't you wait a minute,” from Curtis. Sue likes to tack well in advance of shorelines and shallows. Curtis is into safety, too, but his tolerances are calibrated differently than Sue's, and this is our constant dance. “Ready about!?!” We came about. Not a lot of conversation (but an efficient tack).

Curtis went back to neatening the lines in the cockpit and rearranging the contents of a locker. A large white bird flew over. “Gannet!” shouted Sue. (It was the first gannet sighting of the summer.) Curtis didn't look up. “Gannet, Curtis!” “What are you swearing about now,” he grumped. “It's a gannet, dammit – the bird!” she responded. Curtis looked up. “Oh. Cool.”

Fifteen minutes later, on the same tack, we heard a snort and looked astern. A large black back with a very hooked dorsal fin rose and disappeared beneath the waves. Sue ran below for the marine mammal guide. Probably a long-finned pilot whale, we agreed. OK.

Two Days, Three Shearwaters, Forty Miles under Sail

We have been making our way slowly back to South Bristol from cruising parts east. We have also been gradually ramping up the amount of sailing versus motoring we do on each day, helped along by increasing winds. On August 26 and 27, the last days of our 11-day shakedown cruise, we spent most of each day sailing on south and southwest winds. Our combined trip logs for the two days registered about 41 nautical miles, 95 percent of which was under sail.

We left Home Harbor on Sunday morning and started sailing almost as soon as we were out of the harbor, near Two Bush Light. Our first leg took us out to Little Green and Large Green Islands; we ran the wide gap between them and headed for Metinic Island, a nesting ground for common, arctic, and roseate terns. According to the Bangor Daily News, after four days of nonstop rain in June of this year, all of the approximately 1,400 terns abandoned their nests and quit the island in a single day, likely due to a combination of predation by gulls and the terns' difficulty catching fish in the rain.

We passed south around Metinic and smaller Metinic Green Island –

Little Green Island, a smudge on the horizon

Sue has to interrupt herself here with a digression about Maine place names. They are, overall, wonderfully evocative – Escargot Island, Pemaquid Point, Round Pond, Two Bush Light, Muscle Ridge Channel, Muscongus Bay. Many places have kept their aboriginal names: Muscongus is an Abenaki word meaning “many large rock ledges,” a good description of the bay. (The cruising guide quotes a sailor as saying about the bay, “You have to navigate all the time.”) Penobscot means “the place where the rocks open out” in the Abenaki-Penobscot tongue. Pemaquid means “peninsula” in Mi'kmaq. Opechee reportedly means “robin” in Ojibway. Eggemoggin appears to be a Passamaquoddy word meaning “the place to catch fish” or “the fish weir place.” Damariscotta is Abenaki for “many alewives,” referring to a kind of herring. Monhegan means “out-to-sea island” in Mi'kmaq. Metinic and Matinicus both mean “far-out island” in Abenaki.

Many Maine places share the same name, so, for instance, you always have to clarify which Ram Island you might be talking about (there are 8 listed in the cruising guide). Likewise, there are 9 Hog Islands, 5 Burnt Islands, 5 Seal Coves, 3 Thrumcap Islands, and 2 places called The Gut, to name a few. And why Little and Large Green Islands – why not the more typical antonym pairs, Little and Big (such as Little Barred and Big Barred), or Small and Large? Then there's the small rocky pancake west of the Greens and south of Metinic called Metinic Green Island: perhaps the namers ran out of other ideas and just recombined names of the nearby islands? Place names appear to be as unregulated as botanical names – think of all the flowers called “sunflower” or “daisy.” Some people might fret over this messiness, but Sue thinks it adds a level of interest.

GPS track west from Home Harbor in Penobscot Bay to
Burnt Island in Muscongus Bay

– Getting back to the sailing. From Metinic Island, we headed northwest toward Burnt Island in Muscongus Bay, arriving there in mid-afternoon. Although we made nearly twenty nautical miles on this day, Sue doesn't have many pictures to show for it, mostly because of the difficulty of photographing low flat islands from a mile away on the water. They end up looking like greenish pancakes photographed end-on or smudgy lines separating sky from sea.

We did have excellent looks at (but no photos of, of course!) three greater shearwaters flying alongside the boat. These pelagic (meaning they spend most of their lives at sea) gull-sized birds fly on long, narrow wings that give them enough aerodynamic lift that they soar for a long time without flapping. Greater shearwater is probably a life bird for Sue, or even if it isn't, this was the first time she was able to pick out the fieldmarks for herself: the dark, well-delineated cap with white collar seen from above and the white underwing with dark markings seen from below. Groups of red-necked phalaropes puddled and fluttered around lines of floating seaweed; we counted 60 over the course of the day. But gannets were the big-number story: at least 125 of the elegant, white, plunge-diving birds flew past us or dozed on the water as we sailed. Alas, we don't have the equipment to photograph a veering shearwater or a diving gannet while sailing. It's usually all we can do to get a few panning looks while keeping the boat on course. Eventually we figured out that's a perfect use of our newly installed autopilot: simply press “A” (for Auto) on the control screen to continue steering at the current heading, then grab the binoculars. Simple.

Heeling more than 20 degrees; Sue
thought that was plenty.

We also used the autopilot for a break from sitting or standing at the helm. The wind was strong enough that Cilantro did some good heeling – more than 15 degrees at times – and on a port tack (heeling to starboard), our starboard-mounted galley sink took in some seawater through the sink drain. Not a flooding concern, but it did float the leftover coffee cups around, so Sue closed the drain seacock while we were on this tack. She appreciated the gimbaled stove when reheating leftovers for a hot lunch (see photo below). Because the wind was probably 12-15 knots with occasional stronger gusts, our two foresails (genoa and staysail) exerted significant forward and outboard pressures on the mast, so Curtis rigged the running backstays for the first time to balance the forces.

Gimbaled stovetop is actually level; everything else is atilt.

We worked on refining our tacking procedure with the staysail and genoa. We are finding that the genoa has a tendency to foul on the inner forestay when coming about, unless the wind billows it out forward and around. Sometimes the sheet frees itself, but at other times one of us has to go forward and release it manually. Curtis has been trying the technique of partially furling the genoa on each tack – so that we are shortening sail before bringing it across – and then unfurling it again, but this is a lot of line work to accomplish in a short time, and we lose much of our speed on the tack because we turn so slowly through the wind.

At anchorage by Burnt Island, with Outward Bound boat
and former US Coast Guard buildings in background

We anchored off the north shore of Burnt Island, protected from the southwesterly wind and swells. Outward Bound has a school here, and we shared the anchorage with what looked like a new crop of students climbing aboard and getting used to what would be their floating home for the next three or four weeks. The next morning, while the OB students took salty baths in the harbor, we pulled up our first string of kelp on the anchor. Sue, of course, wanted a photo, so she went to the bow. Hmm, the anchor is out of the water, but who is at the helm? We were in a “controlled drift,” says Sue, when she returned to the cockpit and found Cilantro headed in exactly the right direction to motor out of the anchorage.

String of kelp on our anchor at Burnt Island

Motoring south between Burnt and Allen Islands, we scanned the birds on nearby rocks and in the air. A pair of cormorants powered by, and we both shouted, “Great cormorants!” After days of studying cormorants, we had finally found two of these larger cousins of the double-crested cormorant. They are very similar in appearance, but the greats have a white throat patch below their yellow chin and somewhat heavier bodies. They prefer outer islands, so today's sailing route gave us the best chance to see them. Another life bird for Sue. Curtis apparently has seen everything before. 

We continued south, ploughing into swells that Sue thought were gigantic but were probably only about between two and three feet from trough to crest. She crawled out to the bow and took some photos and a couple of movies with her camera, only to be disappointed later when it all looked very tame. Curtis tried to cheer her up by reminding her that photographs always flatten reality. She tried to laugh at herself and was moderately successful.

Sailing from Muscongus Bay back to Johns Bay and South
Bristol Harbor

Once south of Old Woman Ledge and Old Man Ledge, we raised sails and headed west on a single long tack to pass Pemaquid Point and enter Johns Bay, where we tacked a few times for good measure and to enjoy the wind. We did more heeling and listened to objects sliding off the settees in the main salon. But we also hit our fastest sailing speed yet – 7.4 knots, towing the dinghy – as we neared Corvette Ledge at the foot of Johns Bay, just as we were preparing to furl sails and head into South Bristol Harbor. It made furling a bit tricky, but Curtis manhandled (is that where this word comes from?) everything while Sue held the bow into the wind, and we motored the last tenth of a mile to the mooring.

Jon Weislogel of Bittersweet works with Curtis
to remove and rebed our leaking Bomar hatches.

It felt nice to be back “home,” but it is an adjustment, too, after 11 days of traveling and exploring. Sue misses the rhythm of weighing anchor after breakfast and heading out on a new route each day. Curtis is torn between wanting that continued newness and taking care of business such as topside leak mitigation (it doesn't seem to end), scheduling the last refit projects, and arranging cross-country transport. “How terribly responsible you are,” says Sue, appreciatively. “How awfully adventurous you are becoming,” says Curtis.

Late August is a lovely time in Maine. The weather seems to be changing: for the first time since our arrival at the boatyard on June 21, the humidity fell to 35 percent, and the microfiber dishcloth dried out completely. Three mornings in a row, no dew soaked the decks and cockpit. As we head into September, we are looking forward to daysailing and maybe an overnighter or two before we depart mid-month. Still loving it.